The long wait is over. Tom Hiddleston returns as Jonathan Pine in The Night Manager Season 2, which premiered on January 1, 2026. The first episode picks up years after the explosive events of Season 1, finding Pine trying to build a quiet life far from danger. He now works for MI6 under the name Alex Goodwin, leading a surveillance team called the Night Owls. His job is to watch security footage from London’s luxury hotels, a far cry from his past as an undercover agent. However, a single familiar face from his past pulls him back into a world of conspiracy and forces him to confront the ghost of arms dealer Richard Roper.
The new season introduces a dangerous new player: Teddy Dos Santos, a Colombian businessman portrayed by Diego Calva. Teddy calls himself “Richard Roper’s true disciple,” indicating that the shadow of Pine’s old enemy looms large over this fresh conspiracy. With returning stars like Olivia Colman as Angela Burr and new faces including Camila Morrone and Indira Varma, the series dives back into the tense, stylish world of espionage that made it a hit nearly a decade ago.
How Season 2 Begins: Closing the Book on Richard Roper
The episode opens with a flashback to 2019, four years after Roper’s arrest in Egypt. Jonathan Pine meets with Angela Burr in Syria for a grim task. They are there to officially identify Roper’s body. Burr explains that his death will be kept secret; there will be no official record, and even his family will not be told. The scene confirms that the villain from Season 1 met a violent end at the hands of his captors, providing a sense of closure for Pine and Burr’s original mission.
The story then jumps to 2025. Pine is living his new life as Alex Goodwin. He leads the Night Owls, a team that includes Sally, played by Hayley Squires. Despite the calm of his routine, Pine is haunted. He suffers from insomnia, and even his therapist admits she is frightened by something in him. He lies to her, claiming he is fine, but it is clear the trauma of his past undercover work still lingers. His boss and friend, Rex Mayhew, played by Douglas Hodge, advises him to leave the past behind. For a moment, it seems Pine might be able to do just that.
The Conspiracy That Pulls Pine Back In
The quiet life shatters during a routine surveillance operation. While monitoring a person linked to organized crime, Pine spots Jaco Brouwer on the hotel’s security footage. Jaco is a former mercenary who worked for Richard Roper. Seeing this ghost from his past triggers Pine’s instincts. He immediately reports the sighting to Rex Mayhew, who warns him to drop it and focus on his current, sanctioned work. Rex is nervous and secretly gives Pine a new, secure phone number, a move that immediately signals trouble.
Ignoring orders, Pine directs his Night Owls team to follow Jaco. They discover he is involved in a new arms deal, brokering a shipment destined for Cartagena, Colombia. They eavesdrop as Jaco tells a contact the deal is backed by a powerful figure who models himself on Roper. This information leads the team to a London house, where they make a disturbing connection: the location is also visited by Mayra, the head of the River House supervisory council, played by Indira Varma. This suggests high-level corruption within the intelligence service itself.
Rex Mayhew, now deeply concerned by these developments, calls Pine and says he has “something to show him”. Before they can meet, Rex is found dead. Authorities call it a suicide, but Pine knows his friend was murdered. Racing to Rex’s home, Pine finds the hidden secure phone. It contains a link to a file of evidence Rex had gathered. The file includes photos of torture, Jaco, and a man named Teddy Dos Santos. Scrawled across Teddy’s photo is a critical question: “why is Mayra in business with this man?“.
The New Enemy: Teddy Dos Santos and a Risky Alliance
The evidence reveals Teddy Dos Santos as the central threat. He is a wealthy Colombian entrepreneur and philanthropist, the CEO of a company called Barquero. On the surface, he runs a humanitarian charity named Aurora, but Pine quickly recognizes the pattern. It is the same tactic Roper used—using charity as a cover for illegal arms trading. Digging deeper, Pine finds a video on the Aurora charity website featuring none other than Dickie Roper giving a pep talk, proving a direct link between the old enemy and the new.
Rex’s phone has only one other contact besides Pine: Roxana Bolaños, a Colombian shipping broker played by Camila Morrone. Pine deduces she was Rex’s asset, investigating suspicious shipments at her company. He tracks her down and, in what he calls “a very polite kidnapping,” takes her into protective custody in London to question her. Roxana reveals she was helping Rex look into Teddy but claims to know little else. Pine leaves her under guard, but she proves resourceful, quickly outsmarting her minder.
Determined to stop the shipment and expose the conspiracy, Pine makes a fateful decision. He tells his Night Owls team they must become field operatives. He argues that with River House compromised and Rex dead, they have no one to trust but themselves. The team travels to Barcelona to intercept a meeting between Jaco and Teddy. They manage to plant a tracker on Jaco’s briefcase and follow him to a luxury clifftop hotel.
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A Explosive and Deadly Finale
The operation goes disastrously wrong. At the hotel, Teddy is immediately suspicious. He confronts Jaco, realizing he has been followed. In a brutal sequence, Teddy shoots and kills two of Pine’s team members, Graham and Waleed. He then executes Jaco. Pine, listening from a nearby room, hears Teddy call the phone in Jaco’s briefcase.
“We’re Night Owls, not operatives,” one of his team had warned him earlier.
Teddy’s voice comes through the line, asking who is on the other end. Pine realizes the danger is even greater. He rushes to the hotel room Teddy had originally booked and breaks down the door. Inside, he finds Jaco’s body rigged with explosives. Pine turns and sprints down the hallway just as a massive blast tears through the hotel, engulfing the corridor in fire and debris. The episode ends with Teddy calmly walking to his car as chaos erupts behind him, while in London, Roxana’s safehouse is breached by an armed assailant.
The premiere has generated strong reactions. Some viewers admitted they struggled to remember plot details from the first season, which aired ten years ago. “I have no idea what is going on,” one viewer posted online. Others praised the new episode. One fan called it “outstanding” and “brilliant,” while another said, “Well that didn’t disappoint!”.
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